The Way Through the Woods
by Doyle-sb4
Summary: Jack upsets the equilibrium, if it ever existed. [NineRoseJack]


Title: The Way Through the Woods   
Author: Doyle   
Rating: K  
Pairing: Nine/Rose/Jack   
Disclaimer: Not even close to being mine.  
Summary: Jack upsets the equilibrium, if it ever existed. After The Doctor Dances. 

There's no question, somehow, of dropping Jack off somewhere with a pat on the back and a warning not to go working potentially planet-killing cons again. The Doctor's not sure why this is, really — oh, he knows why Rose is no hurry to get rid of him, but he's never been one to pick his traveling companions for their prettiness or their dance moves — except that he supposes it'll keep Jack out of trouble, and he did help save the Earth, even if it was him put it in danger in the first place.

Two hours with them and he's got his own room; two days, and he's demonstrating his proficiency in lying, charming and generally finagling his way out of a dungeon. The Doctor tucks the sonic screwdriver back in his pocket, unused. He doesn't miss Rose's cheeky smirk in his direction. "Told you he'd come in handy," she whispers on the way back to the TARDIS, even though she said no such thing, just turned on the 'can we keep him?' eyes. The Doctor shrugs and says "Maybe," as if he's still thinking it over.

Jack brings him tea while he tinkers with the time rotor, no milk, spoon almost standing straight up from the amount of sugar. It's perfect. He wonders if Rose told him or if he picked it up from watching; stealth charm. How to win friends and influence time travelers.

"Suppose you'll do, Captain," he says, and pretends not to see his two humans beam at him, at each other.

* * *

"You two are such a clique." Jack's pleased with himself — he's had a bit of an epiphany, it seems, that there's more amusement to be had in just seeing the universe than trying to con the gullible bits of it — and more than a bit drunk. The tavern they've just left had a problem with local drunks, and a landlady who was very grateful to the travelers who sorted them out for her. Any minute now, the Doctor's sure, he's going to find out what fifty-first century rugby songs sound like.

"How are we a clique?"

"C'mon, the in-jokes, the way it's always the two of you…" Jack, in the middle of their trio, sways. They both catch hold of an arm, are rewarded with a flash of that impossibly white smile. "Can't see how anybody would come between you."

"You're between us now," the Doctor points out, noticing the way Rose is laughing, how she's swinging off Jack's hand.

* * *

There are parts of the TARDIS that don't exist any more.

He's lost the quiet places, the rooms that reminded him of a world that doesn't exist any more. They were gone after the War, never grew back; the butterfly room is a grey empty box that smells faintly of dust. The garden's grown wild, carefully tended paths and flowerbeds gone to creepers and weeds. He thought he heard a wolf howling there, away in the dark places of the woods, and after that he sealed the door.

He finds Rose and Jack on the wardrobe room's now-useless spiral staircase, the pair of them sitting on the top step, heads close together as if they've been sharing secrets.

"Thought it had all gone a bit quiet," he calls up to them. "Playing hide and seek? There's nothing up there, y'know, just an old room I had to get rid of."

"Have we landed, then?" Big smile, like she can't wait to see what's out there and that's normal, that's Rose, only she isn't meeting his eyes; jumpy, a kid caught lifting a fiver from her mum's purse. She pulls at her sleeves and Jack bounds down the stairs, all arm around the shoulders and best of friends smile. Couple of seconds earlier, he suddenly realises, and he would've walked in on them kissing. At least that. First time? he wonders. Jack's been with them weeks, after all, and he and Rose have been turning into the best of friends lately.

He looks up at where Rose is sitting and tries to remember what used to be past that last stair. Maybe he's remembering wrong, he thinks. Maybe it never went anywhere at all.

* * *

"It's not…" Rose says, and stops. She's trailing along behind him, the one and only time she's ever paid attention to 'don't wander off' and it's typical, he thinks. One of the most beautiful planets in her galaxy and she's more concerned about what's going on with her and Jack. Humans and their love affairs and their soaps.

He'd hold this up as an example of why he's above these things, only he's finding it harder to lie to himself, just recently.

"It's not what I think?"

"Yeah."

"Who says I think anything?"

"Will you just _look_ at me?"

"There. I'm looking." And he turns, and despite himself he is. Rose is shivering, arms wrapped around herself—he hadn't noticed the cold, or the wind that's whipping her hair away from her face — and she's looking at him like he made the world end.

She's nineteen, he thinks, not for the first time. She is so, so young.

She leans into him when he puts his arm around her shoulders. Almost clings, and he says something daft that makes her smile and she says, "I'm not in love with him."

Closes his eyes, presses his lips to her forehead. Decides not to bother saying that he's not Mickey or Jimmy Stones or some other boy from the estate, that part of him wishes she was in love with Jack and it doesn't matter either way, that it's not that simple.

* * *

"It's so beautiful." Rose spreads her fingers on the glass of the orbital platform. The sunrise creeps across the planet's surface like fire. "The planet's burning."

Jack says, "I've seen planets burn. They're not so beautiful."

His voice is harsh. Honest. The Doctor remembers other planets, other fires, and he reaches for Jack's hand, grips it.

Not much more than a reflex. Offering understanding, comfort, one ex-soldier to another. There's the press of Jack's fingers against his, the flicker of a frown Rose gives them when she turns; later, he'll think of avalanches beginning in a shower of pebbles.

* * *

Just back from Greece, or somewhere enough like it that during their celebration in the TARDIS he gets onto the story about Theseus and the minotaur; Jack says he's namedropping, Rose refuses to believe he was there, and he's drunk the way he can only get when he chooses to be so and he produces a ball of string from somewhere and his demonstration of how he led them out of the maze ends with his hands tangled together. Rose asks, between giggles, if the screwdriver has a setting for string and Jack is leaning against him, plucking idly at the cat's cradle between his hands. It would be a very small thing to kiss either one of them, if it didn't mean deciding. If it didn't mean everything changing.

Must show in his face because Rose isn't laughing, now. Jack is untangling him, carefully, dark hair bent over his hands.

"Did they get away?" Rose's eyes are big in the candlelight. She's beautiful, and so is Jack, and in the privacy of his own head he doesn't have to add 'for a human'.

"Who?"

"The people," she says. "In the maze."

"Oh, yeah." He's free, all the string on the table, and he isn't surprised that Jack is still holding his hands. "Yeah, they found their way. With my help."

Jack kisses the back of his hand. "So who leads you out?"

Through the maze, he thinks. Through the endless corridors, the doors that open onto empty walls, bits of his past that are boarded up and best forgotten. And these two, sure they can guide him through just because nobody's ever told them they can't, stupid and beautiful and his, for now.

And he shuts his eyes, and lets them take the lead.


End file.
